Mobile, MAWSS continue negotiations on Houston Street project

Negotiations are ongoing between MAWSS and the city over a project on Houston Street.

MOBILE, Ala. -- Negotiations were ongoing Tuesday between the city of Mobile and the area’s main water and sewer utility over a dispute that halted a months-long project in the Midtown neighborhood just weeks before expected completion.

City Council members have also been conferring with their MAWSS board appointees, adding a second layer to what has already proved to be a complex political negotiation.

Late last month, the city ordered MAWSS to halt its Houston Street project, expressing concern that further work would compromise aging storm-drains adjacent to the utility’s sewer lines.

The city has told MAWSS that it must completely replace the drainage system along the road in order to proceed with the project.

MAWSS has refused, saying the drainage system was already damaged beyond repair when workers tore out the road.

In its project, which began in May, MAWSS has replaced sewer and water lines under several hundred feet of Houston Street. The project was originally projected to cost $640,000.

MAWSS has covered the street with a temporary layer of asphalt in order to make it passable until the dispute is resolved, adding $17,000 to the project’s bill, said Barbara Shaw, a spokeswoman for the utility.

Replacing the drainage system as the city demands would require an estimated $300,000 to $400,000.

City Council members were supposed to hear the utility’s appeal Tuesday, but they decided to table the issue when Jones and Malcolm Steeves, the MAWSS director, said they were trying to negotiate a compromise.

Some of the council members said that their representatives on the board had reached out in an effort to find a solution, a development that did not sit well with Jones’ administrative staff.

“With all do respect, there are too many cooks in the kitchen,” said the mayor’s attorney, Larry Wettermark, during Tuesday’s pre-council conference meeting.

According to the city’s rules governing work in its rights of way, only the city engineer, Nick Amberger, can determine MAWSS’ responsibilities with regard to replacing the drainage.

Steeves said that MAWSS has offered the city four options. Of those, one is “in the infant stages of consideration,” according to City Engineer Nick Amberger.

That option would see MAWSS replace the storm drain at its own expense, provided that the city credits it the same amount against future permits.

Amberger said that an agreement on the option was far from a forgone conclusion. “We are trying to find some way forward,” he said.